1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods of simplifying simulation of wireless communication networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless network design and optimization algorithms typically perform numerous network simulations to evaluate potential system configurations. Although network simulators may have varying characteristics, one constant is that simulation runtime generally increases monotonically (and frequently non-linearly) with the number of cells in a network that are to be evaluated. In other words, simulation runtime generally increases as the number of cells to be evaluated increase.
For example, consider a network simulator that, based on traffic data, computes network coverage by placing sample mobiles throughout a given network and determining each cell's effect on each mobile and vice-versa (e.g. each mobile's effect on each cell). A single network evaluation using this method would take O(MN) time, where M is the number of mobiles to be examined and N is the number of cells. Given capacity constraints, M is proportional to N, and the runtime of a single simulation is O(N2). Due to this O(N2) growth, a network evaluation can become computationally expensive as the number of cells to be evaluated in the network increase. Performing a plurality of independent large-scale network evaluations, as is typically required for conventional wireless communication network optimization and design, has thus become increasingly undesirable.